The rain had cleared by morning however the weather was forecasted to improve even more in the days ahead; we decided to hang about Lismore itself for the day.
The Bunnings hardware warehouse is just up the road
and always a man’s paradise even if nothing is needed; a bit like a lolly shop
for the regular guy. We did need several items and before we knew it,
our basket was full and the till strip was long; cans of paint for rust already
appearing on the jerry can holders (not so great after all, Paul Winmill) and
for the airconditioner still needing touch up, along with wire straps to secure
the jerry cans.
In following with our normal practice, after
spotting the word Lookout on the map,
we found our way up to Robinson’s Lookout on Girards Hill, to get our bearings.
This must be a pretty place in the heat of the summer, to picnic in the shade
of the tall trees all about, especially if the council gardeners have recently
been. For us today, it offered nothing but a wilderness for creepy crawlies and
impossible views; a Clayton’s
lookout.
We called into the Information Centre again and
chatted at length with the same very friendly assistant I had dealt with
yesterday, coming away with a good idea of where and what to do over the next
few days. Our first port of call was the Lismore Regional Gallery, housed in a
rather small two story building. According to general descriptions of this
gallery, their collection includes works by Margaret Olley, Brett Whiteley,
Patricia Piccinini, all of which I was keen to see. Instead the three small
galleries open to the public today were exhibitions which in our opinion fitted
well with the suited pretentious prats posing as curators rushing about the
place:
1- An
art project titled Survivor by contemporary
Indonesian-Australian artist Dadang Christanto, centred around the hot volcanic
mud that wiped out eleven villages and destroyed many lives in East Java. A film of models holding pictures of victims
of the environmental disaster standing on a muddy set just doesn’t do it for
me.
2- Leonie
Lane’s work titled Bananas, Business and
Bocce – The Lismore Italians is a memorial to the migrants to the area.
Digital prints adhered to the walls and random exhibits like a pair of old
shoes, a table and chairs and a few descriptions here and there might be better
suited to a museum rather than being described as art.
3- Fiona
Foley’s Bliss is a film showing
pretty poppies blowing in the breeze apparently representing the history of the
1897 Aboriginals Protection and
Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act. Deadly obscure to the likes of us, but
then it all comes down to the fact that neither of us as a degree in Art
appreciation and so what would we know?
In
fact, I really wonder why I even bothered to record the above when it pleased
me not at all? Perhaps as a warning to any who might be wondering whether it is
all worth the effort.
Needless
to say, it was a delight to find ourselves in the nearby museum administered by
the Richmond River Historical Society, open five days a week. Fortunately for
us, today was Friday and the doors were open. Here we discovered really good
exhibits of all matters pertaining to Lismore and the Richmond Valley,
particularly impressed with those relating to the waterways and the
timber-getting.
Lismore
is 125 kilometres up river from Ballina on the coast, or thirty five kilometres
by car today. The Wilson River which is joined by the Lycester Creek here at
Lismore, flows south to join the mightier Richmond River; Lismore being the
furthermost navigable port. In 1845 a couple by the name of Wilson took up land
here and named their station Lismore after an island in Scotland they had
visited on their honeymoon. This is a particularly delightful gem when you see
a photograph of this couple taken in their later years. But then we all looked attractive
in our youth and one should exercise one’s imagination more.
The
town of Lismore was established on this site in 1856 and incorporated as a municipality
in 1879, later proclaimed a city in 1946.
The
river which had been useful as a highway for the timber, much of which was
rafted down to Ballina, and for the export of agricultural produce, was also
the bane of people’s lives. Floods fill the great river basin, or wok as the girl in the Information Centre
described it, on a fairly regular basis. The worst one in more recent history
occurred in 1974, but it was not until 2005 that flood banks were constructed
to withstand all future such deluges. Just weeks after the levee was completed,
the river threatened to submerge the town once more and 9,000 residents were
evacuated. It proved to be a false alarm although did test the efficiency of
the SES. However the banks are lower than the flood level of 1974, so it just a
matter of time until history is revisited.
We
retreated to a well-manicured park by the riverside and ate our lunch,
listening to the loud cries of the crows in the trees above, and then returned
to the CBD and wandered about this very busy city. People were everywhere, most
of the shops busy with customers and even when we found the Coles supermarket
in the Lismore Shopping Centre at some distance from the centre of the city, we
found that too busy with shoppers.
It
was still only mid-afternoon when we returned to camp; I set about cooking a
big batch of spaghetti bolognaise sauce and Chris pottered about installing and
working with his earlier purchases.
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